- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (April 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0060014342
- ISBN-13: 978-0060014346
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13.2 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
1,110,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #85 in Books > History > Britain & Ireland > Black Death
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The Black Death was the fourteenth century's equivalent of a nuclear war. It wiped out one-third of Europe's population, takingmillion lives. And yet, most of what we know about it is wrong. The details of the Plague etched in the minds of terrified schoolchildren -- the hideous black welts, the high fever, and the awful end by respiratory failure -- are more or less accurate. But what the Plague really was and how it made history remain shrouded in a haze of myths.Now, Norman Cantor, the premier historian of the Middle Ages, draws together the most recent scientific discoveries and groundbreaking historical research to pierce the mist and tell the story of the Black Death as a gripping, intimate narrative.
About the Author
Norman F. Cantor is Emeritus Professor of History, Sociology, and Comparative Literature at New York University. His academic honors include appointments as a Rhodes Scholar, Porter Ogden Jacobus Fellow at Princeton University, and Fulbright Professor at Tel Aviv University. His previous books include Inventing the Middle Ages, nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, and The Civilization of the Middle Ages, the most widely read narrative of the Middle Ages in the English language. He lives in southern Florida.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A truly awful book!,
By
This review is from: In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made (Paperback)
As a keen amateur historian, I have encountered several dire books that have purported to relate historical events whilst displaying a stunning ignorance of known sources of information on the period concerned. However, none have been such a rich fount of unmitigated drivel as this book!The text is dry and uninteresting, showing no passion for the subject matter whatsoever. The writing style of the author is banal to say the least, with the degree of repetition being truly astounding - surely even a retarded goldfish would succumb to boredom induced by encountering the same "fact" for the umpteenth time. Indeed, the intellectual level of the target audience is summed up by the reference to Henry II being a "young stud" (the fact that Henry had died in 1189 - over one hundred and fifty years before the onset of the Black Death - gives an insight into the pertinence of much of the text to the subject matter allegedly being dealt with). However, the shortcomings of the prose are as nothing compared to the main problem with the book - that it is simply factually inaccurate in so many places! There are, regrettably, far, far too many errors to cite here - just one example occurring in the first few pages of the book is that the works of Thomas Hardy are transposed to Devon (providing not only a shock to the tourist industry of Dorset, but also another example of how relevant most of this tosh is). The author displays absolutely no grasp of British or European history whatsoever, being consistently inaccurate with his chronology of events and paying scant regard to the most basic historical fact. I have never come so close to failing to finish reading a book because it was unbearably awful, but this one tested my resolve. I would certainly challenge it's classification as a "history" title - bad fiction would be more suitable. In summary - PLEASE DO NOT BUY THIS RUBBISH!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
avoid like the plague,
By
This review is from: In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made (Paperback)
This is not a good book. Firstly an awful lot of of it is not about the plague but a general rambling random history of Britain.
Secondly it's very repetitive and continual makes the same points overe again. Thirdly the author appears to try to popularise the subject through such obscure references to comparisons to HIV and suggestions that the plague came from outer space. One to avoid.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
LightweightI,
By
This review is from: In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made (Paperback)
I was very disappointed with this book. I found it neither scholarly nor populist. It was light on facts, considering that it was written by a professor, as well as being understated. The thing that irritated me the most was that it was written with double spacing between the lines of text to give it the impression of being longer than it actually is! This is the second of Prof Cantor's books that I have read and it was exactly the same style and double spacing that this one was. He clearly knows his subject but the net result of his book is a feeling of being talked down to. Too lightweight for me. John Kelly's book is far better.
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